This transcript is an edited version of Baogang He’s conversation with Nicole Curato about the book Deliberative Democracy in Asia published by Routledge in 2021. This was recorded for the New Books Network podcast on Southeast Asia. The podcast is available here.

Nicole: Welcome to New Books Network in Southeast Asian studies. A channel on the New Books Network. I’m Nicole Curato, Professor of Political Sociology at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, Australia, and cohost of the channel. Today I’m talking to Professor Boogang He of Deakin University.

Baogang is one of the editors of Deliberative Democracy in Asia, published by Routledge in 2022. Together with Dr Michael Green and Professor James Fishkin. Professor Baogang He put together a collection of essays written by experts in the region to examine how deliberative institutions are promoted by national and local leaders as well as urban and rural residents in Asia.

Welcome Baogang.

Baogang: Thank you, Nicole.

Nicole: This book is very close to my heart because like you, my work focuses on thinking about the prospects and challenges for deliberative democracy to take root in various parts of the world, particularly in my home country – the Philippines. This book is such a gift for many of us who are trying to envision the precise institutional configurations of deliberative democracy in countries that are often at risk of authoritarian consolidation and illiberalism. So, thank you so much for putting forward such an important intellectual agenda.

We first need to begin with definitions. The book is entitled Deliberative Democracy in Asia. In brief, can you please tell our listeners what you and your co-editors mean when you used the term deliberative democracy in your book.

Baogang: Albert Einstein once said that three great forces rule the world. They are stupidity, fear, and greed. In contrast, deliberative democracy holds the view that decisions must be based on the power of reason rather than political, economic, or military power. Public deliberation is the best weapon against collective or individual stupidity, fear, and greed.

Deliberative democracy can be described or defined as an idea or approach that emphasizes the role of deliberation among equals that induces reflection and results in bonding and legitimate decisions.

Deliberative democracy, in John Mills’ language, is governance through discussions where citizens become forces of collective decision-making on issues that affect their lives. We can see a variety of forms of deliberative democracy, including participatory budgeting, citizens’ juries, and deliberative polling.

Public deliberation is the best weapon against collective or individual stupidity, fear, and greed.

Nicole: I’m glad you mentioned those examples of deliberative institutions because many people when they hear what you just said, that deliberation is about reason, discussion – it addresses our typical view of politics as about power, and sometimes, collective stupidity or unreason. Some people might think that, ‘Well, that is too ambitious! That is too ideal!’. Reality is very far from that ideal. So, I think what’s powerful about the book is it also provides a framework for building democratic or deliberative democratic institutions.

Can you give us examples of how the principles of deliberative democracy are operationalized in Southeast Asia?

Baogang: In the book, in the chapter on the Malaysia case, Professor Sani talks about one of the examples. That is the Temerloh Parliamentary Consultative Council. A sort of people’s assembly, a grassroots parliament. It was established in the local city, in the Temerloh [district]. It aims to have structured consultation. This council, that is called, people’s assembly, grassroots parliament, they involve ordinary citizens, plus also a member(s) of parliament, and some officials to discuss common issues and make decisions about the local issues. The first meeting of the grassroots parliament, started with 70 citizens, later increasing to 150. They discuss a variety of issues, making decisions on local public service issues. This is one example.

Another example is a chapter by Garry Rodan talking about the case of Singapore conversation. The scale is very impressive, but still falls short of the criteria of deliberative democracy. Still, it can be seen as an example of trying to apply public deliberation to improve the public decision-making process. The Singapore conversation involved about 47,000 people. They had 660 dialogues, organized by the committee, spread to about 75 different locations. They discussed health care issues, housing issues, education issues, and all the ageing issues. Those four public issues, really impact Singaporean daily life.

One of the very impressive things about Singapore, is the way they organized those public forums. They are extremely professional. They hired the best experts in the world to advise them. So hard to organize! They are, largely speaking, still consultative, that is, they submit a report to the government. Government adopts some of their policy recommendations. In terms of the 47,000 people attending, while the number is large, it still is not representative.

Another case probably we can say Nicole, is your chapter on the Philippines. You are talking about local development of councils. They can advise legislative bodies. They discuss local issues. These are the best areas to develop deliberative democracy. You also mention Naga, a city of 200,000 people. That is the best example of empowered civil societies. They are participating in a post-authoritarian Philippines. They created the people’s councils. They created mechanisms for direct deliberative democracy by linking public deliberations to formal spaces of decision making. So, this example in Naga City is another example in the Philippines in which deliberation contributed to the local development of councils.

In the Southeast Asia context, there are a variety of examples.

And one of the examples I think in our book is in Thailand. Thailand was quite early in introducing deliberative polling instrument on the health issue. Because there is an agreement that they cannot publicly study that issue.

Authoritarian states are also increasingly using deliberative forums.

Nicole: I’ve been reflecting on the examples that you gave us, particularly, in Malaysia and Singapore. These are countries that don’t really have the best reputation when it comes to freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. And then you gave us examples of citizen dialogues and how these citizen dialogues are bridged to policymaking.

How do you feel about criticisms that these deliberative processes are just being used as, let’s say deodorizers of regimes to show that they are doing something democratic but really the public sphere for the most part is still controlled by the state? How do you reconcile that? Or is that a creative tension that we should just acknowledge?

Baogang: Yes, so in my work I study China, I come to a term called authoritarian deliberation. This authoritarian deliberation is also widespread in Southeast Asia. Semi-democracy or authoritarian states are also increasingly using deliberative forums to improve decision-making processes. There are some issues.

My view is that public deliberation is a common contemporary trend. In these regimes, whatever the violation of human rights or freedom of speech, to deliver the best, good public decision you need a modern technique. The likes of deliberative polling, increasingly used globally in more than 40 countries. So those techniques can improve government decisions. It has become fashionable in many countries to detect public opinion. Deliberative polling becomes an instrument for governments to not only detect public opinion, but also to find out what the people want and offers citizens a little bit of space to articulate their voice, to impact the decision. It is a smart way to run the country.

In terms of being a feature in Southeast Asia as well in East Asia, public deliberation has already become a smart instrument for authoritarian renewal in several countries. Such a practice is likely to continue, even spread to other countries. If we want to deepen democracy, Asian citizens need to work out a strategy to utilize deliberative institutions to challenge existing power relations.

If we want to deepen democracy, Asian citizens need to work out a strategy to utilize deliberative institutions to challenge existing power relations.

Nicole: Another critique put against deliberative democracy is that it is a Western construct, inapplicable to contexts like Southeast Asia. These are countries with particular histories, cultures, social hierarchies, and relationships. When I was reading your book’s introduction, it was very striking for me how you demonstrated deliberative mechanisms in Southeast Asia as already based on traditions of public deliberation. You cite the example of Indonesia, that has a musyawarah which is one of the principles of Pancasila. Tell us more about this.

Baogang: Before we go to the musyawarah, I should just come back to your earlier points that deliberative democracy is criticized for being a western construct. I don’t think so. I think that deliberative democracy practice has roots in Asian tradition. If we look at the history of democracy, consultative deliberative democracy takes place much earlier than electoral democracy. Islam has a long, long tradition of consultation. Islam, deeply in this religious tradition, is engaged in consultation, with the people.

So, come back to Indonesia, musyawarah literally means discussions. So, this notion is enshrined as a core principle in Pancasila national ideology. So, starting under the authoritarian government in the 1980s, the Indonesian military regime promotes the village deliberation, village election even and promotes this musywarah. The idea is that each year, beginning in January, first at the village level they have a discussion on the development plan. Then they will come to the district level, district city level in May. Further, it will reach in August at national levels. At the village level, they have developed a very impressive kind of deliberation. They have infrastructure development. So, each village receives a block grant from the government. They empower the villages to discuss how to use it. This practice is deeply rooted in the religion’s traditions and is deeply rooted in village life.

Deliberative democracy practice has roots in Asian tradition. If we look at the history of democracy, consultative deliberative democracy takes place much earlier than electoral democracy.

Nicole: That’s important to point out. Although, one of the puzzles for many observers of these processes is whether these processes do make a difference. And if we take a step back, and think about the motivations of governments, or powerful people to institutionalize these processes, it’s not immediately obvious, right? What’s the incentive to share power with the citizens? Why would the Malaysian government, why would the Singaporean government share power to the citizens?

You mentioned a while ago that it has become a technology for smart governance. What else did you discover in your book, why do political regimes introduce public deliberation in the first place?

Baogang: We’ve been discussing the three mechanisms under which power holders are forced to introduce deliberative democracy. For a variety of reasons.

First one, deliberative mechanisms can co-opt dissent and maintain social order. Take for example, the establishment of our Singapore conversation which I mentioned earlier. The aim was to exclude or contain opposition voices. So, People’s Action Party had to deal with the shock 2011 election result which they decreased their percentage of vote. And the working-class vote, in particular, had looked into the opposition party – the Worker’s Party. Under these circumstances, in order to contain the force of the opposition party, they tried to introduce our Singaporean conversation as a way to consolidate PAP power. So, in short, these give the citizens a little bit of power to consolidate the ruling party.

The second mechanism is that a deliberative mechanism can generate information about society and policy and help to avoid mistakes. In the Malaysia case, in the age of digital social media every individual can be a journalist, publisher and promote for the certain news. So, it’s difficult to control those social media. So, under these new conditions, Malaysia must open new channels to challenge existing hegemon. Professor Sani in his chapter discusses this quite well. It forces the local government to explore new ways, as I said of building grassroots institutions, to address public concerns.

Deliberative mechanisms can co-opt dissent and maintain social order.

The third mechanism is how an open deliberative process can protect officials from charges of corruption by increased transparency. Difficult decisions always involve public interest. Deliberative processes enable leaders to deflect responsibility onto the process. And it does avoid the blame. So, take for example the village deliberation in the 1980s in Indonesia. When the village receives a block grant from the government, they need to decide how to use it. If the government decides, you should do this, do that. But sometimes that is not what the people need. And sometimes, you invite criticism or complaint. The best way is to just let the people decide. When the people decide, whatever you decide it’s not my problem. Because you make the problem, you make the decision. So, this is a way to deflect the official responsibility onto the deliberative process, and as I said, to avoid blame. In the case of Indonesia, when they introduced village deliberation, the result is very impressive. Those village scale infrastructures normally through those village deliberation process was generally of bad quality, built more efficiently with less corruption than equivalent infrastructure built by government or by contract. This is an obvious reason, because if you push through with these deliberations, you really make a decision that is what the people need. And when you come to the implementation stage it is easier to do so.

Nicole: I really enjoyed how you discussed that. Because it’s not like you’re giving a bad story of deliberative democracy in Asia. It’s not as if these processes are just instrumentalized by state actors and party actors to preserve power but it also creates some room for voice, it’s also rooted in Southeast Asian cultures. But can also be used for authoritarian ends. I think that’s a very important nuance in our discussion which challenges us, people who study deliberative democracy, to go beyond the good or bad categories of assessing deliberative democracy.

Is it good for Asia? Is it bad for Asia? I think the nuances your book offers are very important.

I’m not sure if it’s fair to ask you this question, but from your perspective, on balance, do mechanisms of deliberative democracy enhance the overall quality of democracy in Southeast Asia? Do they do more good than bad? Or, that is not a fair question at all?

Deliberative democracy can improve deeply participative democracy.

Baogang: These are really good questions.

First, I should say, when I read your chapter, your chapter offers us an insight into how deliberative democracy flourishes in the period of uncertainty. From the revolutionary movement against colonialism to post-colonial nation building to anti-dictatorship campaign to civil society driven democratic innovation after People’s Power Revolution. So, you describe this occurring over a long period, that really shows us deliberative democracy, grassroots deliberative practice is one of the driving forces in deepening democratization in the Philippines.

To come back to your earlier question, does deliberative democracy practice enhance quality of democracy in Southeast Asia? I think when it comes to this issue, first I should say, there’s several ways why deliberative democracy can enhance the quality of democracy.

First, it can address the deficiency of a majoritarian electoral democracy. Deliberative democracy can deeply improve participative democracy. For example, deliberative polling can deal with disinformation and fake news successfully. And they can do more.

When I compare Southeast Asia with Northeast Asia, the number of political experiments in deliberative democracy in Southeast Asia is much, much smaller than that of East Asia. So, in Southeast Asia probably we need to see more of those kind of experiments in variety of forms or areas like citizens’ jury, deliberative forums, grassroots parliaments, and like Singapore-style of conversations.

Currently, I think there are some deliberative democracy practices. But in terms of the number, it is smaller. Scale is happening at the village or local level. When it comes to a national level, only Singapore has done this. But Singapore is a city state. So, I think it’s too early to claim that deliberative democracy has already successfully, largely improved the quality of democracy in Southeast Asia.

We need time to test this hypothesis. There are some examples, sure we can do that, it is successful. But we need a larger scale, more experiments. So, this edited book, we really tried to promote this idea of deliberative democracy through some of the successful lessons. So that Asian countries can learn from each other, thus enhance the quality of democracy.

Nicole: Before we end Baogang, I would like to take advantage of your presence in this podcast, as one of the most eminent scholars of deliberative democracy in the region. I’d like to ask you about the future of deliberative scholarship in Southeast Asia. Where do you think is the field headed?

One of the future directions is we will probably see more dialogue among Asians themselves, Southeast Asians and Northeast Asians.

Baogang: I think one of the future directions is we will probably see more dialogue among Asians themselves, Southeast Asians and Northeast Asians. And more dialogue between the political theorists and Asian experts. I think through these kinds of interactions, cooperation, and collaboration between the Western deliberative theorists, Asian studies experts, through Asian citizens, from the Southeast Asia to Northeast Asia. We can produce a meaningful lesson and policy recommendation that will probably be applicable across whole Asia. So that is probably one direction, I think within the next 10 years we will see more meaningful dialogues happen.

The second trend is already happening last year and this year, we increasingly see that the Asians becoming a part of the global deliberation movement on the climate issue, on genome editing. So, there’s lots of global deliberation. Global citizens forums on the climate issues which happened last year. And Asian countries like India, and China, and many others; the Asian citizens have been randomly selected. They participated at the events. And we will see that this year or next year, that more Asian countries will be involved to become part of the global citizen forum on the genome editing issue. So, there would be very exciting new experiments. And also, this offers Asians to play certain new contribution to global citizen deliberation.

The third area with a new trend, is what scholars call deliberative constitutionalism. Constitutionalism normally, in the past, involves stakeholders, political party behind it all engaging the negotiation. Come to the deal, then they walk out, and revise the Constitution.

So currently the trend is how to involve the citizens, the public, in revising Constitutions. Even in the Philippines, I was approached, maybe two years ago to facilitate, or work with someone to develop a deliberative polling on the Philippines’ federalism issue. The President wanted to introduce a federal system in the Philippines. This has not happened yet. But the issue has been raised. I think that the issue was raised a few years ago, this kind of issue will be raised again in the Philippines. As well in Myanmar, I worked with Michael Breen, my colleague and we did some deliberative forum on the federal constitution in the Philippines. And in Japan, they try to revise Article 9 of the Constitution. So, part of the process is to insert this public deliberation into the constitutional revision process. So, these are the new trends that deliberative democracy will play an increased, important role in the constitutional revision process.

Another trend, which we discussed earlier is a new trend both democracy and authoritarianism, need a variety of forms of public deliberation. This authoritarian deliberation becomes a new challenging issue. Asian citizens on one hand need to engage in such practices for the purpose of democracy, and at the same time reduce the level of official control to push more into the citizen’s openness, inclusiveness, and to address what you mention your writings, the sophistication of authoritarianism. So, what we said is the citizens need to upgrade their own instrument. Citizens need to be sophisticated, to develop, push deliberative democracy. We need to study the sophistication of the Asian citizens to address this sophistication of authoritarianism. So those are the 4 trends.

Let me sum up those 4 trends. One is a dialogue between and among, Asia, Western deliberative theorists, and Asian experts. Second, Asia is becoming a part of global deliberations. Third, deliberative constitutionalism. Fourth, Asian citizens need to not only empower themselves; the citizens need to be smart enough, become more sophisticated to meet the challenge of authoritarian deliberations.

We really tried to aim to promote this idea of deliberative democracy through some of the successful lessons. So that Asian countries can learn from each other.

Nicole: That is a lot of work for scholars and practitioners of deliberative democracy in the region. Professor Baogang He thank you for joining us in New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to discuss Deliberative Democracy in Asia.

Baogang: Thank you.

Nicole: You’ve been listening to New Books in Southeast Asian Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. This has been one of hundreds of conversations about other Southeast Asia related books on the channel. You can download or stream these interviews free of charge from the New Books Network website. Or subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

About the speakers

Acknowledgments
Pat Ray Dagapioso and Matthew Harris provided editorial support.